For the homonymous articles, to see Beckett and Holy Thomas ----

Thomas Becket, known as Holy Thomas of Canterbury , (London, December 21st 1117 - Canterbury, December 29th 1170) was Archevêque of Canterbury of 1162 with 1170. It engaged a conflict with the king Henri II of England on the rights and preferences of the Roman Catholic church and was assassinated by the partisans of the king. It was Canonisé in 1173.

Life before the accession with the episcopate

It was born with London in 1117, commercial parents originating in Mondeville in Normandy. It accepted an excellent education at the school cathedral of Canterbury, supplemented by studies with Bologna, then the major center in Occident for legal science. Turning over to England, it drew the attention of Théobald, Archevêque of Canterbury, which entrusted to him several important missions with Rome and made appoint it archdeacon of Canterbury and provost of Beverley. It was characterized by its zeal and its effectiveness, also Théobald recommended it to the king Henri II when the high station of Chancelier was vacant.

Henri, like all the Norman kings, wished being the absolute master, as well of his kingdom as of the Église, and could with this intention be based on the traditions of his house. What it did when it wanted to get rid of the privileges of the English clergy which it saw like as many obstacles to its authority. Becket appeared to him like the instrument adapted to achieve its intentions; the young man was devoted with the interests of his Master and a pleasant companion of pleasures all while maintaining with diplomacy a certain firmness, so that nobody, except can be Jean de Salisbury could have doubted that he was not completely devoted to the royal cause. King Henri sent his son Henri, later the young king , food in the residence of Becket as it was the habit for the noble children to be accommodated in another house (see: Education in the category the Middle Ages). Later it will be one of the reasons for which “the young king” will be turned over against his father, affectivement being affectivement attached to its Becket tutor.

The Théobald archbishop died the April 18th 1161 and the chapter learned with some indignation that the king hoped that it would choose Thomas for successor. It adopted the royal opinion however, the election took place in May 1162 and Thomas was devoted the June 3rd 1162.

Archbishop

As soon as it was named, a radical transformation of the character of the new primacy took place with general amazement, of the king and all the kingdom. The merry courtier and lover of the pleasures made place to an ascetic prelate out of dress of monk, ready to support until the end the cause of the hierarchy. In the Golden Legend , Jacques de Voragine tells that it was mortified while carrying the Cilice hidden under its clothes and that, each evening, it washed the feet of the thirteen poor, nourished them and returned them with four silver coins.

In front of the schism which divided the Church, he declared for the pope Alexandre III, faithful to a man dedicated to the same hierarchical principles, and he accepted the Pallium of Alexandre to the Concile of Turns.

At its return in England, Becket immediately put at execution the project which it had prepared to release the Church of England of the same limitations as it had contributed to make apply. Its goal was double: the complete exemption of the Church of any civil jurisdiction, with an exclusive control of its own jurisdiction by the clergy, freedom of call, etc and the acquisition and the safety of the property like an independent bottom.

The king quickly included/understood the inevitable result of the attitude of the archbishop and convened the clergy with Westminster on October 11th, 1163, asking for the abrogation of any request for exemption of the civil jurisdictions and that the equality of all the subjects in front of the law is recognized. The high clergy tended to agree at the request of the king, which refused the archbishop. Henri was not ready for an open fight and proposed a concerning vaguer agreement habit of his ancestors. Thomas accepted this compromise by however maintaining reserves on the safeguard of the rights of the Church. Nothing was solved and the question remained open. Henri thus left London dissatisfied.

The Constitutions of Clarendon

Henri convened another assembly with Clarendon on January 30th 1164 where it presented his demands for sixteen points. What he asked implied a relative retreat compared to the concessions made with the churches by Henri Ier at the time of the legal settlement of London in 1107 then by the king Etienne of England in 1136 but was located in the line line of a monarchy which, since the time of William the Conqueror, intended to control without division all the businesses of the kingdom. The Constitutions of Clarendon represented however a coding written, more constraining than the habit which prevailed up to that point, and especially intended to place all the subjects of the king, including the clerks, increasingly many, on a legal equal footing (what also meant to perceive the fines related with the judgments), all raising only of the royal courts. The king got busy to obtain the agreement of the clergy and apparently obtained it, except that of the Primat.

Becket still sought to arrive to its ends by the discussion, then he definitively refused to sign. That meant the war between the two capacities in place. Henri tried to get rid of Becket by judicial proceedings and in front of a large council with Northampton on October 8th 1164 convened it to answer of the charge of dispute of the royal authority and maleficence in its use of chancellor.

Becket leaves England

Becket denied the right of the assembly to judge it. It called upon the pope and feeling that its life was too invaluable for the church to be risky, left in voluntary exile. November 2nd, 1164, it embarked on a boat of fishermen which unloaded it in France. In a letter celebrates then addressed to the pope, it exalte the principle of the pontifical superiority, in particular out of legal matter. It is caught some especially with the attitude of the other English bishops who are rejoined with the king and who according to him, ignore the ecclesiastical principle of hierarchy. It went to Sens, where the pope Alexandre III was taken refuge. This last had just received ambassadors sent by the king of England which required of the pope to take sanctions against Becket and claimed that a legate be sent in England with plenary authority to solve the argument. The Alexandre pope opposed his refusal to it, and when the few days later Becket arrived and made him the complete account of the procedure, the pope granted his support to him.

Henri II continued the fugitive archbishop with a series of decrees applicable to all his friends and partisans as well as in Becket itself; but Louis VII of France accepted it with respect and its protection offered to him, the more so as it was a means of weakening its royal vassal Plantagenêt. Thomas Becket remained almost two years in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny (see Cîteaux, Ordre Cistercien) (at the end of 1164-1166), until the threats of Henri oblige it to again go to Sens. Louis VII as Alexandre III organize various missions of conciliation to which take share of the monks of various orders, in particular Chartreux and Grandmont ains.

Becket, in full possession of its prerogatives, wished to see its position supported by the weapons of excommunication and the interdict. But the pope Alexandre III, although sympathizer of the ideas of Becket, preferred to temporize, because its own fight with Frederic Ier required at least the neutrality of king d' Angleterre. The divergences grew hollow between the pope and the archbishop, and the relations became even bitterer when the legates were sent in 1167 with authority of referee. Neglecting this limitation of his own jurisdiction and persistent on his principles, Thomas palavered with the legates, always conditioning his obedience with the king by the rights of his kind.

Its firmness seemed to be rewarded when, finally in 1170, the pope was about to apply its threats of excommunication of king Henri who, anxious of this possibility, put his hopes in an agreement which would make it possible Thomas to turn over to England and to continue his ministry. Finally, on July 22nd, 1170, the peace which was concluded with Fréteval between Henri and Thomas made it possible the English archbishop to return in Angleterre.
Thomas unloaded with Sandwich on December 3rd, 1170 and two days later it entered to Canterbury. But, the two parts remained however irreconcilable and Henri, incited by his partisans, refused to make the properties ecclesiastical which it had seized. Thomas had already prepared the sanction against those which had deprived the Church of its goods and against the bishops who had inspired the seizure.

The assassination

The tension was from now on too large to find an exit other than the catastrophe which was not long to come. A sentence of the exasperated king: “there will be nobody to remove me from this turbulent priest? ” (although it can be a question of a sentence apocryphal book) was interpreted like order by four Anglo-Norman knights - Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Morville, William Tracy and Richard Brito. These four knights thus projected immediately the murder of the archbishop and perpetrated it close to the furnace bridge of the cathedral of Canterbury the December 29th.

Henri II was then solved to make public Pénitence with Avranches in 1172 and to reconsider the decisions ratified in the Constitutions of Clarendon.

Becket was then révéré by the faithful ones in all the Europe like martyr and was canonized by Alexandre in 1173. The January 12th of the following year, Henri II had to publicly make penitence on the tomb of its enemy, who remained one of the most popular places of pilgrimage in England, until his destruction at the time of the destruction of the monasteries. A reliquary was however preserved, and this site is visited by many tourists nowadays.

the Tales of Canterbury of Geoffrey Chaucer occur in company of pilgrims on their road towards the sanctuary from Thomas. The word to lay in the English language indicates the step of the horses, a gallop.

W.J. Williams suggested that the history of the murder of Thomas could inspire the maconnic legend of dead of Hiram Abiff. This theory includes/understands the reference to a group of masons in the town of London making a procession with the vault of Thomas the day of the saint. It suggests that there could be a emblematic part. There was also a military order called of the knights of St Thomas which was active during the crusades and close to the Templiers.

Adaptations

The modern literary works based on the history of Thomas Becket include the parts Meurtre in the cathedral of T.S. Eliot and Becket or the Honor of God of Jean Anouilh (1959) with a film of the same name. At the 19th century Conrad Ferdinand Meyer wrote the Nouvelle Der Heilige (the Saint) in connection with Thomas Becket. At the 20th century, the novel the Pillars of the ground of Ken Follet finishes on this part of the history of Thomas Becket.

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